


Nevermore

by Oraeliaa



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), The Fall - Freeform, Wings, under the stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-28 04:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19386850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oraeliaa/pseuds/Oraeliaa
Summary: Sleeping was new to Aziraphale, but even he knew that this - waking up upon the floor, cast from the bed by your lovers sudden wings- was not the accustomed way to wake up. He's only just learned to sleep, never mind comfort someone in the midst of a nightmare; and yet he finds himself holding Crowley gently, letting the Demon finally, after more than 6000 years, talk just a little bit about his fall from grace.





	Nevermore

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter and join in the Good Omens Fangirling! [@Oraeliaa](https://twitter.com/oraeliaa)

Sleeping was new to Aziraphale, but even he knew that  _ this _ was not the accustomed way to wake up. He’d been quite happily dozing in the bed; so large the two of them always felt somewhat islandish, curled together in the centre. Crowley had been in his arms; back against his chest, head tucked under his chin, and as always had fallen asleep long before the angel- leaving Aziraphale able to simply rest watching the other man's chest rise and fall, ribs expanding as his lungs did. They were strange bodies, really, when you  _ actually _ thought about it. Their hearts didn't have to beat, their lungs didn't have to expand - none of their bodily functions needed to occur and yet they did, almost as if they’d decided upon their own accord to get up one morning and begin pumping blood and digesting food and all the things they were never quite designed to do. He’d always wondered if it were the exposure to humans, another version of the sunglasses staring at him from their stand on the dresser - after all, humans tended to notice when their new friend didn't blink, breathe or bleed when cut. 

He was vaguely aware, touching a hand to his temple, that he was bleeding now; and realised as he turned his head, as he felt the sudden splitting pain there, nerves screaming at him to stop til they’d had a second to heal thank you very much, that he’d hit it against the corner of one of the marble bedside tables the demon insisted were ‘fashionable’

_ “It’s style, Dear - look it up sometime. We can’t all have houses that look like the basement of an antiques store” _

He realised then, glancing back up at the bed in a slow, dazed manner, that the serpent he’d been quite merrily cuddling up to was writhing against the bed, breath frantic…

Wings outstretched. 

He realised, as he heaved himself upwards, glad that his head was already healing, that those beautiful wings - black as the night sky itself and so rarely seen - must have erupted from the poor boys back and thrown him from the bed. Peeking down at his bare chest he confirmed, yes, there was a rapidly fading mark there where the two wings had attempted to enter their dimension in the exact location Aziraphale was currently residing in. 

And well,  _ someone  _ would have to leave. 

The wings had definitely won. 

He rushed round the bed, flustered as he realised in all their years of friendship, of slow, careful courtship...he’d never seen Crowley’s face like this before - twisted in pain, in torture. He threw himself to his knees, the joints groaning at the force and slid his hands onto Crowley’s chin, his cheeks, his forehead. He swept the wild, auburn hair back, rubbing the Demon’s scalp in the way Aziraphale knew he liked, humming softly as he did so. He had no idea what he was doing, he’d never comforted someone in this way before, only angelically, a wave of a hand here and there to remove the sadness, the fear. It was...cheap. Easy. Crowley deserved better. 

And so he got soft touches, hummed mozart and small kisses against his temple once he started to still, once the deep, sharp lines in his face soothed into ones resembling waking. 

He didnt realise his own wings were out til one long, slender hand reached out to them, fingertips skimming along one elongated feather. “Pretty”, Crowley muttered, refusing to look Aziraphale in the eye. They stayed like that for a long time, Aziraphale’s lips skimming Crowley’s forehead, Crowley’s fingers skimming Aziraphale’s wings. On another day, the sensation, the preening, would have been just magical; but not now. Not tonight. 

“Sorry” Crowley finally spoke, voice slightly raw from crying out in his sleep. “For waking you”

“It’s quite alright, Love. I wasn't...I’m still not sure really, how to help you though”

Crowley’s answer was immediate. “Outside, please”

Aziraphale twisted, looking to the tall window at the side of the room, to the balcony out there that no other flat had; obviously added at some point in the past. He’d never really paid it much mind before, but realised now that this could be the reason it existed. He began to move, to pull away, but hands wrapped around his upper arms; those soft, stroking fingers becoming strong vices against his skin. 

“Don’t-”

“I’m just going for the door” the Angel began, gesturing towards it as he spoke, then letting the words fade as he reached around the Demon, bundling the covers around him and lifting him into his arms - glad he was occulty strong as he carried the tired, shaking Demon from his bed and out into the fresh air. The door he opened with a simple nod, a minor use of his gifts, before sliding the two down on the floor, white wings stark against Crowley’s black ones as he pitched them forwards, wrapping both men in a feathery embrace.

“Warm enough?” he asked, looking down at the man he loved, wrapped in both the duvet and himself, and smiled softly as Crowley nodded, staring up at the stars; miraculously visible as they always were above Crowley’s flat. 

  
“It’s always amazed me” Aziraphale began “how much you love the sight of them. Being you know, a serpent and all”

“The stars?”

The angel nodded. “Mmm. Snakes often like to nestle in warm, enclosed spaces; no stargazing to be found”

When Crowley didn’t answer, Aziraphale continued, knowing if Crowley wanted silence he’d tell him. “I’ve always wanted to meet them, you know”

“Who?”

“Those Angels who made the stars. Who made, well, anything really. Gabriel was involved, I know that much, though I imagine not quite in the grand capacity he likes to make it out to be. I’d like to just once, find out what it was like to actually  _ create _ all that life, not just look after it. To decide what colours make up a nebula, a galaxy, what animals should be in a tundra, and which beside a riverbank...to make God’s vision a reality, to look upon all this life and think ‘I did that. I helped with that. That exact shade of yellow in the centre of a daisy, the little tips of pink on the petals...that was me’”

“S’not that great, really”

“The earth?” Aziraphale asked, incredulous. Crowley  _ loved _ the earth, all it’s strange oddities and propensity for mild mischief. He loved small pieces of technology that went wrong and caused all sorts of bursts of negativity. He loved cars, and their engines, and the roar of machinery under his hands. He loved the style of the place, their never ending stream of options and choices of clothing and music and art...

“Making it”

Aziraphale was snapped from his internal monologue, of his memory of Crowley’s face, soft and happy as he watched an arrogant, snotty idiot on one of those ‘hoverboards’ lose control and smoothly, rapidly glide into a pond before he could leap off. 

“You took part in the  **creation** ?”

He didn't answer, merely nodded, eyes still fixed on the sky. 

“What did you…”

He let the question hang in the air, Crowley’s choice whether to answer. 

“The stars, as you said. I chose the colours, the placements, the whole  **fucking** lot of it. I created endless forests, tropical ones, boreal ones...the twee ones in England that you love so much, with the moss and mushrooms…”

“My dear, I had no idea” Aziraphale muttered. They’d never spoken about it before, he’d always found the concept of falling one that made him feel sick to his stomach, and he’d always figured Crowley wouldn’t wish to talk about it either, nasty business as it was. 

“Do you know, Angel, that all I did was ask questions?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I was too...inquisitive. She had made me, and set me to work and I bloody loved it, loved every minute of it, but then I started to get curious, questioning. I asked too many ‘what-if’ questions...What if the human’s don’t like it?. What if they ruin it? What if they’re not good, or worthy of all this? What if, what if, what if…”

Aziraphale didn't speak, choosing instead to simply swallow the heavy, thick lump in his throat and run his fingers through his lovers wings, holding him as close as he could without blocking out the view of the twinkling lights above. 

“I know I joke that I didn't fall, not really...that I sort of, sauntered downstairs one day; but that’s a lie. I didn't know what was happening, none of us did. I only knew that I was burning, that my wings were slowly crisping to black, the whiteness peeling off into the sky like ashes from a bonfire. I was shrieking with pain as I fell, as we all fell, simultaneously into that cramped, stinking, horrible pit and I couldn't see what was happening. It could have been hours, or days, or mere seconds before I woke and when I did everything was so bright; so vivid...it felt like...you know, Upstairs had removed some sort of glittering veil and I could see for the first time the sheer depth of what we’d created, what we’d lost. All because I asked too many  **questions”**

The last word was spat with all the venom a serpent such as he could create. 

  
“I was left broken, empty, with demonic eyes and a body that felt hollow without you know” he gestured upwards, “Their love to fill it”

Aziraphale could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks, the breath hiccuping in his throat. “I wish...I could have met you before, but then also i’m glad I met you when I did. As you are now, as you were then...my Crawly, then my Crowly”

“I wasn’t even called Crawly back then, or Crowley. I can’t even say my name; it makes me sick, puts a taste in my mouth that’s a bit like Tarmac melting, or petrol fumes, or a bin on a summer's day. It’s shit. They took my wings, and my name, and my life, all because of a bit of harmless curiosity”

Aziraphale rested his lips against Crowley’s crown; the hair there smelling of cinnamon and tickling his nose. “I don’t need to know it. I only know Crowley, and I’m happy with that. Crowley is more than enough for me. I don’t need some angel...”

  
“Archangel”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows raised, surprised, but he carried on regardless; not letting it feed through into his tone. “Archangel, then, I don’t feel the differentiation matters. All I care about is the friend who stood by my side for over 6000 years, who did heavenly miracles and made me perform mischief. Who taught me to sleep, or at least  _ rest _ , and resides in my arms every night; and will do so for every night he’ll give me. I care about that individual; heavenly or otherwise, demonic or otherwise”

He felt the shudder of the being in his arms, heard the wet intake of breath as he replied. “Thank you, Angel”

He only hummed against Crowley’s skin in response, letting the love he felt seep into the demon like sun through a window, enjoying the feeling of the Demon softening in his arms in response. “It happens every year I'm afraid, the dream”

“Of the fall?”

“Of the…” Crowleys words cut off as he pressed his fingers, bitten from the nerves of the past few weeks, to Aziraphales cheek. “Blood” 

“Oh” Aziraphale waved away his concern, after realising he was referring to the dried blood on his own temple and not blood that had been spilled during Crowley’s fall from Heaven. “Healed in a jiffy, heavenly powers and all that”

Crowley’s tone was dark, rough as he seemed to curl further into himself. “I hurt you”

“You absolutely did not!” Aziraphale insisted. “I was in the way of your wings, that’s all”

“Which wouldn't be out if it weren’t for these stupid dreams! Every year, I feel them coming on; pathetic shakes and worries and sleepless nights. I used to try and sleep throughout the whole bloody period, just to ignore it was happening”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

The Demon’s voice came out in a mere mutter; the words flying together to form almost a single, unintelligible word. “Didn't want you to know, to think I was weak”

“Weak? Dear boy how could I ever think you were weak? You don’t think I avoided sleep for so long for a reason? A desire to not see the last 6000 years of my life whenever my subconscious chose it to be so? And all I’ve had to deal with is human wars and suffering, not my own fall from heaven! My goodness, weak; I'm surprised you think so little of me”

“...I hadn’t thought of it that way, I guess”

“It seems you very well hadn’t! Now, tell me, what do you dream of?”. Aziraphale’s voice dropped low, soft where Crowley’s had been hard. “If you wish to tell me, that is. If you don’t, then we’ll forget I asked, forget tonight even happened and we’ll simply sleep face to face, or not at all, til this has passed”

“It might...it might help. I’ve never had anyone before, to talk to...Like when I thought you were gone; I dream of that a lot...I had nowhere to turn, no-one to go to so I did what I always did, I just dealt with it alone…”

Aziraphale whispered Crowley’s name, almost like a prayer into the ether before them, drawing himself tighter around his counterpart and waiting for him to talk. 

“It’s...not just the physical part of the fall, it’s the confusion, then the fall, the crash. Of my life, dying in Her hands as I dropped with the others; cast out by Michael...through the clouds and onto the ground below, through into the under-ground of the ground below. And no-one knew who I was, not really, the demonic shits. A few did, putting me in a lofty position even down there, but no-one really knew who anyone was, or what they’d been before. They were all actually defectors, most of them, they’d wanted to leave, to rebel. I just...got swept up in it all. I loved Her so much, back then, so dedicated to all Heaven was and what it stood for, and then I was cast out; falling with Michael standing over us, spear in hand. I hate her so much.

“Michael?”

“Yup, and the big G. Hate them both, they can do themselves sideways for all I care. Casting me down like that, dumping me in Hell where I had to try and scheme, figure my way out. There was fighting, so much anger and hate and rivalry for a small piece of what was available, which wasn’t much, even before humanity came around and began making a shitstorm of things for themselves. The day I got to go to Eden was the greatest of my life, offering that apple and sheltering from a storm with an Angel…”

“Sheltering said Angel from harm for the next 6000 years”

“Trying to convince him I was in love with him without...without having to say the words…”

Their lips met, under the stars that Crowley had created, as vast and immeasurable as what lay between them now; and Crowley couldn't help but glance at that bloodied cheek and worry; but at the wings around them both and realise that here, in Aziraphale’s arms...this was where he belonged, now. 


End file.
